Politics

By Office of the President-elect [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

In a statement Monday on Transgender Day of Remembrance, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke out against violence against transgender people.

Tillerson wrote about the need for the United States to continue supporting the community. He said that the United States “remains committed to advancing the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all persons” according to The Hill.

“Transgender individuals and their advocates, along with lesbian, gay, bisexual and intersex persons, are facing increasing physical attacks and arbitrary arrests in many parts of the world,” Tillerson wrote. “Often these attacks are perpetrated by government officials, undermining the rule of law.”

The Donald Trump white house come under fire previously for their treatment of the transgender community.

In July, Trump tweeted that he would ban transgender troops from serving in the military. After signing an August memo to block their service, a federal court partially blocked the ban from going into effect, according to The Hill.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions also reversed a Department of Justice finding that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects against transgender discrimination in the workplace in October.

“Today marks another low point for a Department of Justice, which has been cruelly consistent in its hostility towards the LGBT community and in particular its inability to treat transgender people with basic dignity and respect," the Director of the American Civil Liberties Union's LGBT & HIV Project James Esseks said in a statement.